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“Martin Duke, the well-known pitcher, died in this city on Saturday, Dec. 31, of pneumonia. He had not played ball for several seasons and earned a precarious livelihood by working around a local saloon. He was a strong pitcher in his time and held engagements in the National League, Eastern League and Western League. In […]
Entering the last day of the 1939 season New York Yankees’ righty Steve Sundra owned an unblemished 11-0 record, but a September 30 home run from Boston Red Sox rookie Ted Williams spoiled that. From 1900-60 Sundra’s .917 winning percentage ranked fifth among pitchers with 10 or more decisions in a single season. Combined with […]
Central Indiana proved a fertile spawning ground for late-nineteenth-century baseball talent. Among those from the region making their mark in the game were future Hall of Famers Amos Rusie and Sam Thompson. Soon thereafter, early Deadball Era standouts, including Cooperstown-bound Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown and 204-game winner Al Orth, joined their ranks. The subject of […]
Jorge Comellas didn’t impress during his brief stint in the major leagues at the age of 28, as a right-handed pitcher with the pennant-winning Chicago Cubs in 1945. He was demoted before June 1. However, he pitched for six years in the minors before the war, and at the age of 20 was good enough […]
“He scares you to death. He’s scowling and gnashing his teeth, and if you try to dig in on him, there goes your Adam’s apple. He’s gonna win if it kills you and him both.” So the Cincinnati Reds’ Danny Litwhiler described the unnerving experience of batting against Sal Maglie. Between 1950 and 1956 Maglie […]
On September 12, 1972, Bill Gogolewski, a 24-year-old right-hander who had struggled thus far in his second full season in the big leagues, was pitching the game of his life against fireballer Nolan Ryan and the California Angels. While the Ryan Express was racking up 15 strikeouts, Gogolewski held the Halos hitless through 7⅔ innings. […]
From calling baserunners safe to keeping schoolchildren safe, Luther Derr Sahm had a long and eventful life – much of it spent under a professional alias. He called himself Doll Derr,1 and it is under that distinctive name that he appears in major-league records as an umpire in the National League for 28 games in […]
A baseball player fighting during a game isn’t that unusual. A player fighting twice in less than a year is probably a little rarer. Fighting twice in less than a year with your own teammates – during a game – may be unprecedented. But that’s exactly what happened to St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Ted Cather. […]
Nearly forgotten today amid the pantheon of great Deadball Era hurlers, Earl “Crossfire” Moore–so nicknamed for his unorthodox method of shooting a sidearm pitch from the very end of the rubber–ranked as one of the American League’s most promising young players during the first five years of its existence. Six feet tall, square-jawed, and with […]
Babe Ruth called him “Broadway” because Lyn Lary loved the theater in New York, and Lary’s obituary in The Sporting News said he “tried his best to live up to the nickname the Babe hung on him. He was one of the best dressers in the majors and drove a big eight-cylinder car that had […]
Even for serious fans of early baseball, it can be difficult to know what to make of Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame member Arthur “Foxy” Irwin. On one hand, Irwin popularized the baseball glove, inspired a character in a Zane Grey novel, and served as a team captain, player-manager, manager, scout and minor-league owner during […]
Waving goodbye, the impeccably dressed young man with fiery red hair and ruddy complexion hurriedly boarded the Cleveland-bound train. In the span of nine short days, The Pride of Penacook had graduated from Dartmouth, signed a contract to play for the New York Yankees, and now was en route to join his new team. Place […]
Irish Meusel was the starting left fielder on New York Giant teams that won four consecutive National League pennants from 1921 to 1924. He was one of the leading sluggers of the era, a clutch hitter known for his ability to drive in runs. In 1923 he struck out only 16 times while leading the […]
“Baseball was his life,” said Gene Myatt of his father, George Myatt, who spent four decades in baseball (1933-1972) as a player, coach, and manager, and was the third-base coach for the 1964 Phillies1 Most of his playing career was as a second baseman, but he also played third base, shortstop, and the corner outfield […]
Baseball was already a fixture on the Cuban scene by the early 1870s and it had arrived burdened with its own home-grown Cuban apostles and its own full-blown and home-spun creation myths. It is well documented that a pair of Havana-bred brothers named Guilló (often misspelled as Guillot) had returned from Mobile, Alabama’s Springhill College […]
Newly recruited from the Pacific Northwest League, boyish left-hander Jimmy St. Vrain pitched capably for the Chicago Cubs in early part of the 1902 season. Plagued by poor defensive support – more than one-third of the runs surrendered by St. Vrain were unearned – he posted a hard luck 4-6 record, with a fine 2.08 […]
Those who served during World War II were collectively known as the Greatest Generation. Many young, and not so young, men went into the service during that time and returned home to resume their lives. But for those whose lives had been baseball, they often found that their days of playing major-league baseball were over. […]
John Clapp was a part of so many beginnings in baseball history that his middle name should have been Genesis. He was the second batter that the Cincinnati Red Stockings faced in their Eastern tour of 1869; in the opener of Al Spalding’s groundbreaking tour of the British Isles in 1874, he delivered the game-winning […]
The best curve ball that Babe Ruth ever saw came not from Walter Johnson, Dazzy Vance, or Firpo Marberry. It was from Walter Beall, a DC sandlot baseball legend who was a teammate and hunting buddy of Ruth’s — the pair used a West Virginia cabin owned by Beall’s paternal grandfather.1 “His curve broke down, […]
In March of 1935 Mickey Rocco boarded a train in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, headed for Hot Springs, Arkansas, to start his career in professional baseball. The St. Paul Saints of the American Association had offered him a tryout and the opportunity to make the team as a 19-year-old rookie. Sixteen years later, […]
“It’s a thrill not only playing baseball in Milwaukee, but being back in a city which has been like home to me,” gushed Henry Aaron about his return to County Stadium for the first time in 10 years.1 “I’m looking forward to it,” said the 41-year-old Aaron about confronting the challenges of playing a new […]
The crowd at Wrigley Field wore slickers and raincoats. Some held red, white, and blue folding umbrellas with the Chicago Cubs logo. Others sported smaller, hands-free umbrellas on their head. “What’s a little rain,” Greg Gumbel asked the television audience, “when there’s an All-Star Game to be played?”1 Baseball’s midsummer showcase returned to Wrigley Field […]
Despite signing with the Chicago White Sox in mid-March, John Skopec had no guarantee of making the Opening Day roster in 1901 – it actually appeared that he would face a daunting uphill climb to do so.1 The White Sox, who won the 1900 pennant when the American League was a Class A minor league, […]